DirectX 11 Ray Tracing Demo Shows The Power Of AMD

A new ray tracing demo was released featuring DirectX 11 rendering effects while running on an AMD 5870. The demo managed to make its way online and to various video sites but then managed to get taken down. Thankfully there is still a video of the ray tracing in action and it really is a great selling point for AMD cards.

VideoSift managed to grab the video before it went private, and that means you get to take a look at how dynamic, real-time ray tracing effects look running on a current-day GPU like the 5870. Check it out below.

For those of you wondering when we'll see games hit this kind of graphics fidelity, don't expect it to come anytime soon. Ray tracing is usually used for static environment simulations due to the slow and complex way it interprets real world lighting and refraction into a virtual environment.

Still, having the tech demo run that smoothly in real-time on a 5870 is very, very impressive. And we are at least getting to the point where games are almost at the point of looking that good in real-time, as showcased by SquareEnix with their Luminous Engine at this year's E3.

On the bright side, the future of gaming visuals is definitely looking up...although, I'm not so sure if console gaming will be embracing that future based on all the sketchy rumors of low-end hardware for the Xbox 720 and PS4.